HEALTH

04.30.13

Eat Junk Food While Pregnant, Have Obese Babies

New study finds children could “permanently” find it harder to have healthy weight.

A new study has found that not only is there a direct link between eating junk food while pregnant, but also children born to mothers who ate junk food could “permanently” have problems achieving healthy weight. In a study published Monday in the medical journal FASEB (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology), Dr. Bev Mühlhäusler, from Britain’s Adelaide University, wrote that mothers who ate junk food impeded their babies’ ability to respond to opioids, and that as children they would crave the same opioids to get the “happy feeling” from junk food. “Mothers eating a lot of junk food while pregnant are setting up their children to be addicted,” Mühlhäusler said.